


Spelling It Out

by anamatics



Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: Coming Out, F/F, Genderqueer Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-03
Updated: 2012-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-09 02:50:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/450433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anamatics/pseuds/anamatics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It comes out in the worst fucking way imaginable. Naturally, because Jane has the most horrible karma in the goddamn universe and she hates herself for it afterward.  Takes place in the same universe as A Gentleman's Dilemma and Darkness Within. Could be read as a stand-alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spelling It Out

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to Crackinois for the read through, as always. :)

****

Spelling it Out

It comes out in the worst fucking way imaginable. Naturally, because Jane has the most horrible karma in the goddamn universe and she hates herself for it afterward. Probably because she doesn’t love her mother as much as she should - or something. It’s weird. It comes out like vomit. She didn’t mean it.

She's arguing with her mother about how she's wearing jeans and a t-shirt of Maura's from her snooty French boarding school. There's plenty of space in the chest, Jane smirks. She’s not hiding today – can’t around her mom. There are some things that she’s never felt quite comfortable with, honestly. The idea that her mother might someday have to _know_ about her is terrifying.

Jane isn’t sure what there is to tell, but she feels like a goddamn moron after the fact.

"Why can't you be more like Doctor Isles?" her mother tuts, glaring at Jane's tatty sneakers and the fact that she's slouched at the kitchen table over a beer. She's had a long day, she deserves it. It's what her dad is doing in the other room and Jane doesn't see her mother complaining about that. There's a strange double standard that her mother holds her father to that doesn't allow for him to attract her mother's ire like Jane can. "You are a girl after all."

Jane wants to bite her tongue and swallow the retort that she's _not_ , but it comes out anyway. Because Jane can't control temper, like all the guys in her family. Italian blood never lied and Jane hates herself for muttering, "I'm not."

Her mother frowns at her, and Jane realizes that she's gone and said it out loud. Her hand flies to her mouth and her eyes widen as she estimates the trajectory of a mad lunge for the back door. Her mother _cannot_ know.

"What do you mean?" Her mother demands, and Jane runs a hand through her hair and doesn't say anything, her hands almost shaking as her darkest secret has stumbled its way out into the open. "Janie..." 

"Forget it, Ma," Jane grumbles and pushes away from the table. She can't believe that she said it, that she let it happen. That she was so fucking _stupid_. 

"You're just gunna leave?" Jane nods her head.

"I gotta go anyway," Jane holds up her phone and runs away like a little pussy. 

It isn't easy. She's been lying to her mother for months about Maura. About why Maura was there after Hoyt, about how she never let Maura leave. She was so afraid, so terrified. She hated everything about him, hated how he looked at her. He knew her secret, he said her secret out loud - that bastard.

The trial had come and gone and now it is just them, picking up the pieces. Jane hates that she's struggling, that her hands still ache constantly from the scars Hoyt left there. She hates that she can't tell her mother how much she loves Maura.

She knows better than to do it though, she's already possibly ruined everything a million times over.

She is a girl, she's not a girl. 

She's fucking confusing is what she is.

x

"I might have accidentally told Ma," Jane says that evening, sitting back on the couch as Maura reads through a file, glass of wine held primly in one hand. She looks down at her hands, resting on her lap, at the hidden promise just underneath the fabric of her jeans. She's hiding behind it again, behind its confidence and its strength.

She doesn’t know why she’s such a coward about this stuff, but it comes so much easier when she can pretend to be something that she’s not (and yet she is). She can handle what her mother is going to say if she can just… not be herself for a little while. Jane knows better than to think that she’s escaping reality like this. Things have changed. She can’t just be a guy at a club and pick up some beautiful woman and take her home and fuck her ‘till the sun comes up.

Coping with her life isn’t quite so cut and dry any more.

She likes to think that it’s because of Maura, but really it’s because of what Maura’s _done_. Drawing Jane out of her shell and into a relationship that is as-of-yet undefined in words. They don’t really talk about it much, honestly. Maura likes to ask Jane questions she’s not entirely sure that she should be answering that stem from her readings into gender theory. She’s not trying to put a box around who Jane is, and Jane is entirely too grateful for that when she’s pushing into Maura from behind, reveling in the moment there. 

It comes easily with Maura. Always so easily. It’s never the struggle that Jane finds herself facing with her mother, with her coworkers. She’s _not_ a lesbian. It’s more complicated than that.

Her jaw twitches as Jane runs a hand through her too long – almost never long enough hair. Her mother is going to call soon.

Maura lowers her folder, eyes curious. She looks so beautiful in that moment that Jane is without words. She leans forward, hands in Maura's hair, kissing her gently. 

It's easy to get stuck, to linger, kissing Maura. Jane finds it delightfully distracting and when she takes the folder from Maura's hand and sets it resolutely on the coffee table, she doesn't say anything at all. There aren't any words now, just actions. 

She has to say she's sorry for this before it happens.

Her phone rings, Jane curses, and digs it out of her pocket, Maura lying beneath her on the couch, pupils dilated and lips swollen. She looks ready for the promise of what Jane has in store for her, and Jane has half a mind to put down her phone and simply go back to kissing Maura.

Jane likes her that way, wet for it. Wanting it, biting at her lip as she watches Jane, fingers splayed across the swell of her breast.

It's her mother, fuck. Jane knows that she should just ignore the call and go back to kissing Maura. That is what any _sane_ person would do in such a situation. 

Naturally, Jane is pretty much the furthest thing from sane on a regular basis. She sighs. "Not a good time, ma," she says as she picks up the phone. 

Maybe she should have ignored it.

"Janie, I was talking to..." Jane's eyes glaze over and she's not really listening, Maura's right there, she's warm and soft and fuck this feels amazing to be pressed against her. 

"Why did you say you're not a girl?"

Everything stops.

The color drains from Jane's face and she sits up hurriedly, lips pulling downward into a tight frown, hand white-knuckled on the side of the couch. 

She could lie, say she's just not a girly girl, which was sort of the implication she was going for anyway, but that's bullshit. She has to tell the truth. She's so sick of hiding the truth from her mother, from everyone. 

"Hang on, ma," Jane says, pressing the phone into her shoulder and hoping she doesn’t look too much like a kicked puppy as she turns to Maura and shakes her head sadly. Shit's about to get real.

She doesn't know what to say to Maura, but she hisses, "She knows."

Maura's hand is on Jane's as Jane raises the phone back up to her ear and presses it, exhaling quietly, to her ear. "Ma?" she whispers.

"Janey?" Her mother says, "I'm here."

Jane takes a deep breath and begins to explain. She doesn't know where to begin, but it comes easily after a few half-started sentences. "Ma I..." she tries at first, but the words swell up in her throat, choking her as she tries to speak. "There's something that I've been meaning to tell you for a while now."

"You aren't pregnant are you?" Her mother sounds scandalized, but that would require sleeping with a guy, and while Jane's done it, she hasn't in _years_ (and she fucked him not the other way around) and it really has nothing to do with that. 

"No Ma." She laughs, because it’s easy to giggle about the idea that she’d somehow get fucking knocked up. She’s too smart for that shit, not to mention that the whole idea of being pregnant is so repulsive that Jane feels sick to her stomach just thinking about it. She swallows and shifts her weight around, trying to find a comfortable position on the lumpy couch, the words tumbling out past her lips despite her best intentions to keep them secret. "I just... Well uh... Maura and I are er..."

"Oh that?" Her mother laughs, it sounds easy and happy and Jane is about to fucking destroy that happiness and she can’t stand herself for doing it. There’s a moment of silence, before her mother adds, almost as an afterthought, "Jane, you’re not exactly subtle." 

Her ma’s a good Catholic. Half the time Jane thinks that she’s one as well. She’s not, God would never forsake her in her moment of questioning and the downward spiral that led her to places that she’d rather not remember. God would have found a way to save her from Hoyt – the bastard who had seen through her as though she was nothing more than the clever façade that she liked to pretend that she was.

Maura’s leaning in, her lips still swollen to the point of distraction. She’s listening, Jane’s okay with this. She’s never had someone that she cares about enough to actually let herself be completely open with. It feels wonderful, and Maura’s pressed up against her, hand lingering on Jane’s thigh, rubbing it reassuringly.

She gives a little nod and Jane finds herself full of a bravado she doesn’t know. Jane swallows, and begins to speak. Her mother won’t understand – not many do. They’re all obsessed with societal boxes and how best to put people into them, but Maura knows. And Maura will be there when her mother doesn’t understand with literature that will go completely over her mother’s head. 

It might be okay.

She’s sitting in her living room, on her couch with a beer sweating on the coffee table (Maura insisted on a coaster), when she comes out to her mother about the fact that she’s not a fucking girl. "It's not like that," her voice is deeper now, low, husky. It’s the way that she usually speaks when she’s trying to not be herself; to not be a girl. "Maura... she uh... gets me for who I am. How I see myself."

"What do you mean?” Her mother sounds confused and Jane doesn’t exactly blame her. 

Jane runs her hand through her hair and sighs. “Half the time, ma, I don’t feel like a girl.”

“Like a tranny?” Her mother says and Jane winces. She _hates_ that word. 

Maura’s hand is warm on Jane’s thigh, and Jane bites her lip. She won’t lash out, not now. Her mother doesn’t _know_. 

“No, ma,” she says. That’s all she can say. She doesn’t know where to fucking begin. She probably never will know where to begin.

Her mother’s breathing is the only thing she hears on the other end of the line for a long time. Maura looks curious, and Jane fidgets uncomfortably. 

Her mother sighs after a while, and then says, “I don’t know what that means, Jane.” 

“You’re not supposed to. It’s not something people can really understand, it’s just a _thing_ about me,” Jane knows that she’s grasping at straws, that her mother is going to fly into a rage or hang up on her soon, the door probably hitting her on the ass as she heads off to confession as fast as her legs can carry her. 

There’s no solace in that now. 

“Are you fucked up?” It’s weird; her mother doesn’t usually use that sort of language. There’s a hard edge to her tone and Jane bites her lip and refuses to acknowledge what’s happening. Maura’s looking concerned and Jane can’t stand this. Can’t stand any of this.

This is when she usually fucking peaces it right the fuck out and goes and fucks a chick until she can’t feel anything but the ache in her muscles and the burn of her own arousal. It’s a terrible way of coping and she knows that. She’s not an idiot. 

“Are you a fucking man now, is that what you’re telling me Jane?” her mother’s pissed. Not good. 

“No, ma.” God, she’s repeating herself over and over again and she’s not getting it. It’s fucking awful. 

“Let me talk to her?” Maura mouths and Jane blinks and thinks about it before shaking her head violently. There’s no way in hell that she’s letting Maura talk to her mother when she’s like this. Jane’s not a fucking idiot. 

“I don’t identify as one, anyway,” Jane doesn’t know why she feels the need to clarify this, but she does because Maura’s looking put-out and Jane can tell that she’s got some smart words on her lips that would probably smooth this whole thing over. Jane can’t let that happen. This is a fight with her mother that she has to have. Her mother has to understand that it’s not what’s between her legs and on her chest that makes her who she is. It’s inside. It’s a social construct. 

Maura’s got her reading again. Big books of gender theory as if Jane doesn’t already know all that shit. She’s fucking lived it and no one can tell her otherwise.

“Then what are you?” Her mother wants to know, and Jane can tell she’s crying. Confused and crying. 

“I’m Jane,” Jane says simply. “The same as I’ve always been.”

They say that coming out isn’t easy but Jane’s pretty sure she’s not supposed to feel like she’s being murdered by her mother’s silent disapproval. 

“I’m going to need some time, Jane,” She doesn’t blame her mother in the slightest. This takes a long time to figure out. She’ll do what her mother needs to make this better. “Can I call you later?”

“Tomorrow, ma,” Jane’s lips curl upwards into a smile and she really should – but totally can’t – resist adding, “Maura’s over.”

Her mother makes an unintelligible noise and hangs up and Jane throws her head back and laughs.

x

Maura’s skin smells of sweat and tastes of salt. Jane’s lips linger at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. She bits there, nipping at the skin, leaving a mark and she doesn’t give a fuck that they’ve got work in the morning and Maura’s not exactly known for her luck with ‘men’ at the office. Let ‘em wonder, Jane says, and sucks hungrily at that point.

She doesn’t know how they got here. She never does with Maura. It comes so easily. Maura bats her lashes at Jane and Jane’s hard instantly, pushing forward, taking Maura’s control away from her. She leans forward and kisses her on the couch, her phone falling forgotten to the floor. Her mother won’t call back until she’s figured shit out anyway. And until the priest tells her that Jane’s going to hell for a multitude of reasons and being rather genderfucked will probably play second fiddle to the fact that she’s shot people on the job. And doesn’t go to church or confession anymore. And any number of other things that Jane does that are awful according to that fucking asshole priest her mother loves so much.

Jane’s fingers close around Maura’s breast and she marvels in how Maura’s whole body seems to shift up and into Jane’s hand. It is heavy, warm, nipple hardening as Jane lets her thumb circle it. She’s content in moments like this, when she just wants to fuck this amazing woman who doesn’t give a flying shit that it’s easier for Jane to fuck like this. They’ve come so far, but as Maura’s mouth opens and her breath is coming in harsh pants that make Jane harder than she’s been in days. 

This is what she wants, this is what they need. 

Jane trails her lips back up Maura’s neck, lingering on her jaw, nipping at her earlobe. Hot, open-mouthed kisses that do little to sate the wanton lust that is filling Maura’s eyes. Jane knows what Maura wants, and she knows how best to satisfy that need. 

If this wasn’t so much about escape and forgetting that her fucking mother just called her up and called her a fucking tranny somewhere along the way, Jane would draw this out. She’d let Maura know just how much she meant, but right now Jane just needs to fuck and Maura’s wet (oh so wet) and ready for it. 

Maura’s got Jane’s shirt off and her hands are on Jane’s back, nails biting into the skin there, raking up and down, clinging as Jane struggles with her cock. The harness is chaffing her ass and she should probably stop and adjust it, but she doesn’t when she sees the look in Maura’s eyes. This will be so easy. 

A quick inspection of Maura’s bottom half and Jane is smiling smugly as she gazes down at Maura. Her fingers trail across the wetness that’s gathering between Maura’s legs, and Jane feels like she’s the most powerful man on earth. She has this woman, this fucking gorgeous woman, sopping wet and biting her lip as Jane slowly pushes two fingers up and into her. 

“So wet,” Jane mutters, leaning forward slightly, the heel of her palm pressing resolutely against Maura’s center as Jane works that wetness. She’s captivated with how Maura bites her lips and bucks her hips – trying to get more, to get Jane to go deeper. “I would have taken you earlier, had I known,” she would have too, bent her over the side of the couch, pressing into Maura, her fingers playing with Maura’s breasts as Jane rode her. 

Maura smiles up at Jane, before wrapping her arms around Jane’s shoulders. Her fingers tangle in Jane’s hair and pull her down into an open-mouthed kiss. “Need you,” Maura breathes, hips bucking against the assault of Jane’s hand. 

Jane’s all smug smiles as she shifts, cock in hand, drawing her fingers out of Maura. She’s so completely undone, make-up smeared, hair disheveled, her chest heaving as Jane pauses to circle Maura’s clit with slick fingers. Jane watches as her breath catches and shifts her body so that she can push her cock up and into Maura with as little resistance as possible. 

She doesn’t know why they’re fucking like this today, but it feels good and right and Jane’s really okay with that. Her cock slides home into Maura and Jane bites her lip. Maura’s so fucking tight and wet and god it should not be this fucking easy to fuck this beautiful woman. 

Maura’s hips are wrapped around Jane’s waist and her breath is coming in short pants as Jane pushes in and out of her, as hard and as fast as she can. Her cock feels rock hard and Maura’s just making it harder. Every little whimper and intake of breath spurs Jane on. Her mind is a haze of Maura and of sex and of how fucking good and right this feels. 

She lowers her lips to the spot where she’d lingered before, mark still harsh and red against the pale skin that Maura’s heritage affords her. Jane likes her that way, pale and almost glowing in the dim light of their room that has become their only refuge. Here there are no expectations, no mothers to judge and no coworkers to act like assholes. Here she can take Maura as a woman, as a man. It doesn’t matter, they’re free here. And Maura’s skin is beautiful in the moonlight. 

“Do you like it,” Jane begins, her hips never slowing and her eyes flicking up to see that Maura’s watching her with curious eyes. Jane knows better than to keep watching her, because she’ll come and it’ll be embarrassing because she’s better than any fucking other guy Maura’s been with. “When I mark you?”

They’ve talked about how it’s a bad idea for Jane to do it. How Jane doesn’t want to get caught in the act of fucking her best friend, how Maura does like to pretend to be a professional most of the time. 

But in the heat of the moment, Jane finds that she doesn’t give a flying shit and she thrusts into Maura as she laps with her tongue. She’s drawing a mark that will be dark and angry in the morning, that will make Maura tut in annoyance but really savor the memory of. Jane knows Maura well, and this is what she likes.

“Ja-” Jane doesn’t let Maura finish, cutting off the nickname that she can’t quite get Maura to stop saying with her lips and her tongue. Maura’s close, she’s getting tighter and she doesn’t want to let Jane thrust into her any more. 

It’s fucking hot and it drives Jane’s troubles from her mind with each push and pull of her hips. Maura’s so tight, so wet, and Jane’s going to make her see stars when she comes.

Maura comes with a cock as she does with her fingers or with a fucking vibrator (although, fuck that shit). She is beautiful in her moment of orgasm. Jane knows that she should not revel as a woman as put-together as Maura Isles comes undone by her hand, but Jane does revel in it. She revels because it’s the greatest thing in the goddamn world and in that moment she can forget her mother, forget her job, forget everything but Maura.

Maybe someday they’ll understand, but for now, it’s better to just have Maura.

Maura’s the only one who understands after all.

She doesn’t stop. She can’t ever stop when Maura comes. Jane knows it’s stupid and foolish and probably sort of dickish to keep going, but she likes to watch Maura’s face as her orgasm subsides and Jane coaxes it back with each languid thrust back into her.

Today it’s different, she’s so close already because fuck if Maura’s not turning her on. Jane bits her lip and allows herself to meet Maura’s gaze evenly. Maura knows what a near-orgasm looks like and her hands, still leaden with her own release shove Jane’s bra up and over her head with a triumphant smile that sets Jane going even faster. She’s griding up against the harness that keeps her firmly entrenched in ambiguity and she’s so fucking close.

“God,” she gasps, Maura’s fingers rolling across her chest, palming nipples, coaxing them to hardness so Maura can pinch at them. “God _Maura_.” She’s so close and her hips won’t stop even though Maura’s so tight that it’s almost impossible to keep going. 

“It’s okay,” Maura whispers and Jane is so afraid in that moment. They’ve never gotten this far. Not like this. Jane never comes like this. It’s terrifying. There’s a finality to it that Jane can’t shake. She shivers her body focused on reaching climax. She’s so close, so fucking close.

Maura leans up and kisses her and Jane feels herself go. 

She rolls off Maura as soon as she can move, her cock still hard and erect and she reaches down and pulls the buckles at her hips that keep the thing strapped to her waist.

Today has been a day of firsts, it seems. 

“Maur,” Jane hums, pushing the harness down off of her legs and smiling lazily at Maura. “Thank you.”

“Why?” Maura asks. Her brow is furrowed and she seems genuinely confused, but Jane knows her. She’s gunna say something unsexy if Jane’s not careful. She leans over and presses her lips to Maura’s. It is a kiss full of promises and Jane likes it like that.


End file.
